


all of your friends (and all of my friends)

by silentwalrus



Series: caveat emptor [7]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Politics, Roy’s thousand dollar dressing gown, and it’s about to put roy into traction, animal kindness with remarkable resemblance to cruelty, inspiration strikes (like a tractor trailer), undergrad shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26765137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentwalrus/pseuds/silentwalrus
Summary: The doorbell rings well after Roy’s put on his dressing gown but before he’s applied his nightly moisturizer, so he’s obligated to not only answer it but do so with relative good grace. In any case it’s almost certainly someone’s aide with something that can’t wait until Monday, and regardless of who they work for it always scares them more when he smiles and says thank you and remembers their names. He checks his pocket on reflex - there are ignition gloves fucking everywhere these days, Riza plants them like a squirrel hiding acorns - and opens the door.“Hi,” Ed says, standing in his doorway with no fewer than three teenagers clustered behind him. “Can I borrow your car?”
Series: caveat emptor [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790881
Comments: 69
Kudos: 491





	all of your friends (and all of my friends)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank u to aeta for tireless beta as i grimly cranked this thing out
> 
> Title from my queer teenage anthem by model child

The doorbell rings well after Roy’s put on his dressing gown but before he’s applied his nightly moisturizer, so he’s obligated to not only answer it but do so with relative good grace. In any case it’s almost certainly someone’s aide with something that can’t wait until Monday, and regardless of who they work for it always scares them more when he smiles and says thank you and remembers their names. He checks his pocket on reflex - there are ignition gloves fucking everywhere these days, Riza plants them like a squirrel hiding acorns - and opens the door. 

“Hi,” Ed says, standing in his doorway with no fewer than three teenagers clustered behind him. “Can I borrow your car?” 

“No,” Roy says blankly, and then, “My _car?”_

“Your car,” Ed repeats patiently, only that’s when the scent of blood hits, and Roy sees dark smears on Ed’s hands, his chin. “Don’t worry, I already gave the pig first aid -” 

Roy _feels_ the adrenaline discharge into his bloodstream. _“What_ did you - a _cop?”_

“What? No! A pig! An oink oink, fuckin’, farm animal _pig_ \- it was in the road, got hit by a car or somethin,” Ed says exasperatedly. “For fuck’s _sake._ If I rolled a cop I wouldn’t fuckin’ show up on your _doorstep.”_

“A pig,” Roy repeats, hackles not lowered in the slightest. It’s not that he thinks Ed is lying, it’s more that an Elric covered in blood almost invariably means things are worse than even the Elric thinks they are. “In _this_ neighborhood?” 

“Somebody musta been keepin’ it in their backyard or somethin’, I don’t know,” Ed says irritably. “You gonna gimme your car or not?” 

Then again, maybe things are exactly as bad as they look. “For the _pig?”_ Roy demands. 

“No, for my fuckin’ prom train - _yes for the pig.”_

“You are _not_ putting a dead animal anywhere near my car -” 

“It’s not _dead!_ Would I fuckin’ be here if it was dead? It’s fucking fine, we’re taking it to a vet.”

Sick animals are not much better than dead ones, and despite Roy’s admittedly limited experience he suspects they are at the very least messier. “What kind of city vet does _pigs?”_

Ed makes an incredulous scoffing noise in his throat. “What? What kind of vet _don’t_ do pigs?”

“I know one who does horses,” blurts one of the teenagers, voice wobbling. “And that’s, that’s, well, that’s _closer_ to pigs than cats and dogs -“

Ed sighs, going from irate to a sort of resigned patience Roy’s never seen on him before. “Pigs are tough, Landy. It’s not that badly hurt.” 

Upon closer inspection, Ed’s entourage are not all that young as they first seemed: more university students than teens. One of them has the waifish, underdone look of a baby scientist - though on second look, the paleness and eye circles are definitely the end result of some enthusiastic if amateurish makeup routine - while the other two are suspiciously well-coiffed and muscular. The one called Landy’s mascara isn’t budging despite the tears starting to brim. 

Perhaps not all baby scientists, then. “Please, mister, uh. Um. Sir,” Landy says, turning big brown eyes on Roy, lip wobbling convincingly if not quite with the same resolve-disintegrating pathos as a stone-cold professional’s. “We just need to get it to the vet. We’ll clean everything up, I _promise.”_

Which certainly does not bode well for the future of Roy’s upholstery. But the night is only growing more sharply chill, and Roy is already sans half his dignity, standing in his doorway in a dressing gown conducting negotiations with a cohort of half-grown baby-rich hooligans that are if not exactly Ed’s friends then at least the people he gets arrested with these days. 

They’re also all drunk, because growing up at Chris Mustang’s elbow means Roy can spot inebriation at fifty paces: shiny foreheads, general dishevelment, Miss Landy’s slightly too loud voice. _Ed_ seems to be sober, or at least much less drunk, though with him it’s hard to tell - Roy’s seen him high on a dozen different combinations of rage, determination and fear, but that’s up, not down, and the closest to drunk he’s ever seen Ed was when he was blinking up at Roy from the makeshift pool he’d made, roused from sleep. 

He’s pretty sharp in the eyes now, or at least as sharp as a face like a happy meat bun can get. And he had been subduing hostile chimeras back when he had the size, weight and temperament of a bag of angry seagulls. One disgruntled pig is not problem enough to - gods forbid - _call in a favor_ with Roy.

Unless the favor, however absurd, is the actual point.

Roy takes a step back, letting the door swing further open. “Let’s discuss this inside.”

“Oh, the second some girl bats her eyelashes you’re all over it,” Ed mutters, but quietly enough that Roy ignores it as he leads the way into the house, deciding this is going to be best handled in the kitchen.

The whole retinue shuffles after him, and it somehow manages to feel like there are more of them once they’re all in an enclosed space. He hears one of the strays whisper, “Ed? Who is this guy?” as it apparently dawns on them that Ed just invited all of them into a total stranger’s home and the aforementioned total stranger agreed to that course of action.

“I told you, I owe him money,” Ed says disinterestedly, followed by someone else’s confused, “That doesn’t… what?” 

“Don’t worry about it. Also, yo, M- Roy?” Ed calls, which - well, it’s unsurprising that he doesn’t want them to know who Roy is, but between the reading glasses, silk jacquard dressing gown and unstyled hair Roy’s hardly worried about getting recognized. “Can we have some water or something? Brinley, if you yarf on his carpet you’re gonna regret it.” 

_Definitely_ the kitchen, Roy thinks grimly as he steps aside and waves them all onto tiled flooring as quickly as possible. “If you’re going to vomit, do it in the sink,” he says shortly. “There’s water in the icebox.” 

The strays cluster up by the sink, then immediately scatter again as Ed strides for it, knocks the tap on with his elbow and starts scrubbing. There are some confused drunken collisions before they end up by the icebox instead, making a halfhearted effort not to look like they’re staring. Though now that they’re on opposite sides of the kitchen, Roy can see it’s not just him they’re watching like he’s a new species of spider that crawled out of their latte. _They’re already all scared of me,_ Ed had tossed aside, behind that damn police station; presented with this, Roy wouldn’t quite call it accurate, but he can see what Ed means. 

Roy, quite frankly, is unimpressed, but knows better than to outright show it. It’s been a long day on top of an even longer month, and he has neither the energy nor inclination to fake amiability for a pack of barely legal drunks, but just because he’s tired and annoyed doesn’t mean he gets to be sloppy. “Well?” Roy says, raising his eyebrows at the flock of lost souls who have decided it’s Ed who’s to be their guiding light. “Introduce me.”

“They’re from school,” Ed says dismissively over the splashing, less like he doesn’t want Roy to know names and more like Roy should know this already. “I was tutoring.” 

Ed _tutors?_ “At midnight?” Roy says, leaving aside for a moment the utter absurdity of the concept of _Ed_ , _tutoring._

“Yeah, well, practice ends at eight, and Brinley gets off work at nine,” Ed says, jerking a wet thumb at the bleary-eyed tank-like boy like Roy is supposed to know this also. 

“We’re on the gymnastics team, with Ed,” Landy contributes, somewhat damply. “He’s helping us with math.” 

“Chemistry,” Ed corrects. 

“Which has a lot of math,” Brinley the boy gymnast says, in the slow, emotional tones of the deeply drunk. “A _lot._ Of math.” 

Ed joining a gymnastics team is at least more in character than _tutoring._ “And this required -” Roy sniffs pointedly - “vodka?” 

Ed shuts the sink off and grimaces. “Yeah, well, it turns out I’m shit at teaching people chemistry.” 

“Or _anything,”_ the painted waif mutters. 

“Yeah, well… and then Tracie started crying, so…. we came to an understanding.” 

“An understanding,” Roy repeats. 

“Yeah, I do their problem sets and they do my poetry assignments.” 

“He sucks at teaching _and_ poetry,” says Waif Tracie, deeply accusatory. 

Ed probably doesn’t need it pointed out to him that this is technically academic fraud. Roy resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “At what point did alcohol begin to feature in this?” 

“We were, y’know,” Ed says, waving his hands around in what he probably thinks is communication. “Getting inspiration. Can’t write poetry without inspiration.” 

“Dry your hands before you splash all over my floors,” Roy instructs, pointing at the towel hanging off the icebox door; this scatters the strays like blown leaves, which is such a familiar reaction that he has to check that he doesn’t have his gloves on. “So you got drunk in the streets, found an injured pig and left it loose to come call on _me_ instead of animal control?”

Ed rolls his eyes but goes to the towel. “Okay, firstly, it’s not _loose,_ we left it with people -”

_“‘People’?”_

_“Aline_ and _Chal,”_ Ed says with exaggerated patience, like Roy is supposed to know who these are also. “And relax, this shit ain’t my first rodeo, it’s not loose. It’s fenced in.” 

“And just _where_ is it fenced in?” 

“I dunno, someone’s yard?” Ed says with all the affronted pride of a pig-wrasslin country native. Roy has never been more grateful that he will forever be a thin-wristed townie. “It’s only like, ten minutes from here.”

This area has whole streets of neighbors with award-winning hyacinths. Roy has a happy moment imagining the carnage and ensuing fallout, but even that’s not enough to distract from the rest of the situation. “Which returns us to the central question, Edward: why not animal control?”

“Oh? Not gonna help, bastard?” Ed holds his gaze level, a challenging, mocking jut to his jaw, unaware or uncaring of how the strays are all staring openly at this back and forth. “And after all those promises you made me.” 

Good to know they’re on the same page. “I will always help you, Edward. Right now, for example, I am helping you by pointing out that there are trained professionals whose entire jobs revolve around solving exactly these kinds of problems.” 

Ed makes a disgusted noise. “Those stray-chasing trigger happy assholes with shotguns? I know what happens to lame horses and lost pets in this town, bastard. We’re trying to help the pig, not turn it into bootleg cat food.”

And while Ed is perfectly capable of dealing with large and even aggressive animals on his own - especially with several burly compatriots with a tenuous grasp on common sense - Roy can see how the logistics of transport would require some kind of vehicle, especially without alchemy. And Roy doesn’t have to read minds to see Ed is not raring to either deal with authorities or engage in a little light crime with his civilian friends in tow.

So he went to Roy. The set of Ed’s face is clear: leash me like a dog and I’ll damn well shit on your rug like one. 

This, Roy thinks with grim humor, is progress. Malicious compliance is still compliance. Ed can chew on the bit as much as he likes; this is an oath Roy isn’t giving up. He can’t even fault the brat for stress-testing this with all the subtlety and glee of a toddler jumping up and down on their first trampoline: it’s good instincts, good practice, good habits, and Ed has known right from the start that any deal with Roy is no safe bargain. 

He sighs and beckons. “You’re paying for the reupholstering.”

“Hey, I’m doing _you_ a favor,” Ed says immediately, following him into the hallway. “This is what you wanted.”

Opening his house at some unblessed hour to Ed and his herd of miscreants so that a wounded pig receives the medical attention it very likely doesn’t deserve. “Quite,” Roy says. “They’re in the--” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Ed says, then - further wiping his palms on his pants, the little animal - briefly bumps his face into the back of Roy’s shoulder, like he’d clap his back only he doesn’t have the hands to do it. “Thanks, bastard.” 

He toddles off for the keys, loose-limbed and easy and clearly unburdened by any actions past present or future. Roy stares. “Edward. Are _you_ drunk?” 

“Yeah, lil’ bit,” Ed agrees unconcernedly, turning with the keys in hand. His eyebrows start to scrunch like he can see Roy’s horror but he’s having trouble connecting cause and effect. “Why?” 

“Give me those,” Roy says, snatching for the keys, but apparently being drunk enough to treat Roy like he does Alphonse is nowhere near enough to dampen Ed’s reflexes.

 _“I’m_ not gonna drive!” Ed backs into the kitchen, his grip on the keys gone resentful. “Tracie is.”

“You were going to borrow my car and let some -” Roy remembers at the last second to veer away from the talking-to-Ed track and slam down some filters “- young lady drive it?” 

“Mu- Roy, I have _seen_ you try to operate a civilian vehicle, and _me_ driving _drunk_ is _way_ safer than _you_ driving _sober_ . Tracie’s a _much_ better driver than you are.”

“I can drive,” Waif Tracie pipes up. 

“I’m sure you can,” Roy says, taking Ed’s wrist to remove the keys from his hand; this time Ed lets him do it, scowling. “You’re not going to.” If Ed’s drunk, Roy can’t just assume the critical thinking has been handled here. “Edward. You can’t just take the car and go anyway. You’re going to need more than that if you’re transporting an animal.”

“What? Like what?”

“Like a _tarp,_ to begin with. How are you going to lift it?”

Ed scoffs. “We’re on the _gymnastics team,_ bastard. Do you _know_ how much Landy can bench?”

“As much as she likes, I’m sure.” Roy sighs and resigns himself to his involvement. “I’ll drive you. Come here, you’re going to help me with the back seat.”

Ed makes some indistinct noises of ingratitude but follows him into the garage, where Roy’s fairly sure the painters left at least some of their more disposable equipment after the remodeling. If not they can alchemize something to make do where the children won’t see. “What did you tell the guards?” Roy says as he points Ed at the stack of paint cans and smudged cardboard boxes.

“What? Oh.” Ed starts poking through the boxes as Roy unlocks the car. “It was whatshisface, one of Peters’ guys at the gate, he knows me. I just told him we were the Saturday night snack you ordered and he laughed and let us in.” 

“Wonderful,” Roy mutters. “And here my communications director was just telling me how I haven’t hit my sex scandal quota for the quarter.” He can’t fault the guard - Anje, by the sound of it - because they _do_ know Ed and he _is_ on the list for approved access. Just as he can’t fault Ed for doing what he’d promised to do, if drunkenly and with half a kindergarten in tow. Ordinarily Roy would extract his due - the little brat knows _full_ well what a deliberate nuisance he’s being - but the point is to make Ed _want_ to come to him. Roy can afford to be generous. 

“Aha!” 

Ed’s found a drop cloth in one of the boxes. He doesn’t _seem_ too out of it, but Roy sees him stumble slightly out of the corner of his eye as he goes to the back of the car to see about shifting the seats forward to open more trunk space. “You need to eat something,” Roy instructs, opening the trunk. “And drink water. I’m not dealing with your entourage _and_ you drunk.” 

“I’m not _drunk,”_ Ed protests. “I’m _at best_ tipsy. I can recite you Vonn’s fucking sequence if you like, I been doing it all evening.”

Roy frowns at him over the seats. “They’re doing Vonn’s sequence and you’re _tutoring?”_

“They’re learning about the Cai-Saler process only their shitty little textbooks are all abstracted because whoever the fuck wrote these decided it’d some-fuckin’-how be _more_ understandable if you take out all the theory behind it.” Ed huffs some hair out of his eyes, folding the drop cloth into the trunk. “So I ran through Vonn’s sequence a bunch. Only they don’t get that either, so. I just wrote it all out at the end and made them copy it.” 

“I certainly hope you have a better strategy for helping them cheat their exams,” Roy says, before remembering he deeply does not give a shit. 

“Oh, that they don’t need help with,” Ed says. “They got into university all right without me, they know how to run an exam their way. I’m honness’ly just relieved Brinley can read.” 

“Well, finish up this pig business quickly and you can get back to roundhouse kicking each other in the throat or whatever it is you do.” 

_“Gymnastics_ , bastard, I _told_ you the martial arts team wouldn’t take me.” 

“Nothing I know of gymnastics suggests it is any less violent.” Roy shuts the trunk and heads back for the house - though he slows slightly, when he realizes Ed left the door to the garage open and it’s letting some echoey whispering down the hall. 

“Is that. Like. His dad?” 

“That’s not his dad, you _saw_ them! They don’t look _anything_ alike -” 

_“So? Adoption_ is a _thing,_ and so are _stepdads_ -” 

“Oh my god, his dad’s _dead,_ you dum dums, he _told_ us. His parents are both dead.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, _oh.”_

“Well he didn’t tell _me.”_

Roy gives Ed an unimpressed look. Ed’s already got his face squinched up like he also can’t believe the sheer intellectual caliber weighing down the tiles in Roy’s kitchen, but there’s a padding to it like Riza sometimes gets when looking at puppies: this thing will shit uncontrollably all over anything I happen to own, but lord if it isn’t too cute to leave in the gutter. Roy shakes his head and heads upstairs to change into something that doesn’t involve a dressing gown.

It does occur him that there may be cause for concern, because Ed carb-forages like a combine harvester and out of what’s available in Roy’s kitchen rice takes far too long to make, he doesn’t keep bread in the house and the only things in his icebox are drinks and jealously hoarded fruit from Bhagwati. When he returns downstairs, however, he sees Ed’s found some ration bars and distributed bottled water among the children. Roy doesn’t ask any unhelpful questions like ‘did you check the expiration date’ and waves for them to follow as he heads for the garage. 

There’s some minor pileup pageantry caused by none of the children wanting to sit next to or directly behind Roy, but Ed is unamusedly bringing up the rear and it has an effect similar to that of lambs scattering before a sheepdog. They get in the back, Ed gets in the passenger seat, and then he turns to Roy and says very seriously, “If you drive like a maniac, Brinley will puke like a firehose directly at the back of your head.” 

Roy looks at him, then turns in his own seat and stares down the packed-in delinquents. “Roll down the windows. Keep them down. If one of you releases any kind of bodily fluid whatsoever inside this car _all_ of you will be cleaning it up.”

He doesn’t need the _with your tongues_ specified. They don’t know who he is, but Roy spent half of Ishval with sand down his throat and subsequently worked out a command voice that could get results without bellowing himself hoarse. There’s some frantic synchronized nodding. 

“Sheesh, don’t blame _them_ for your shit driving,” says Ed, for whom the command voice may as well not exist. 

“Do not presume yourself exempt if any cleaning becomes necessary.” Roy turns back to front, starts the car and gestures between Ed and the windshield. “Well?” 

Ed may be a brat, but he gives clear, well-timed directions and makes no mention of the squinting Roy has to do to check the road for any rogue rollerskates, tricycles, skateboards, toy trucks, nighttime bicyclists or cherished household pets fleeing for their lives along this idyllic stretch of extremely residential neighborhood. It’s starting to make more sense how Ed found an entire live pig, at least - they’re moving away from where Roy lives at the very edge of new money mansionlet territory and more into the well-appointed streets of those rich enough to move halfway into the suburbs but not quite enough to avoid having neighbors. Roy’s heard enough of Gracia’s stories to know there are definitely people out there who are far enough removed from real agriculture to consider a pig a charmingly unique pet. 

The strays stay quiet in the backseat, docile save for some occasional shifting and mumbling as they try to make four people fit in a three person seat. Roy spares a glance through the rear view mirror and finds at least two of them hastily looking away, too drunk and unpracticed to make it look anywhere near natural. 

They don’t know who he is. He’d call the feeling nostalgic if he had any inclination towards glorifying the past. It’s been a while since Roy’s had to introduce himself: these days, his reputation proceeds him more than ever, and there’s been no reason to curtail it. These kids don’t know what Ed’s brought them into contact with, that the reason he only has two plainclothes guards on his house right now is that three weeks ago he had sixteen people very publicly arrested on charges of assault on military personnel, attempted murder of military personnel and conspiracy against a state official: all treason. They’re going to be executed, because the death penalty hasn’t been repealed yet and Maes was right: Roy cannot afford not to make an example of those trying to kill him. He does not jail his political opponents, he does not retaliate against those who work against him. But assassination - no. If someone wants to bring him down they can get in line for the hard way like everyone else. 

So he gave the orders to Intelligence, who submitted it to Justice, and Teylan approved the warrant and sent out the MPs and ordered the tribunal: attempt to kill a military officer, be tried in military court. Grumman signed the execution papers the next day, and Roy will be reminded by an aide - as per the note in his calendar - that he will want to wear his formal uniform when he joins the Justice officials at the firing grounds come Monday. They’re expecting a full complement of press: this is something of a standout case, after all, and there’s plenty to report on when it comes to the failed assassination of the Flame Alchemist. It hasn’t been out of the news for the past month.

And these children have no idea they’re in the same car as one of six cardinal ministers of their nation’s government. 

On the one hand, that’s fairly depressing, because these children are students of Amestris’ most academically challenging university, and thus unavoidably considered the best and brightest of the rapidly oncoming future. That they can’t even recognize their Minister of War does not speak well of the political literacy of the average junior intelligentsia. Of course, Roy had thought _he’d_ been quite politically knowledgeable at their age, and all that got him was killing his own countrymen and slaughtering civilians by the townful. There’s something to be said for ignorance as an improvement. Better politically apathetic than slow-cooked in propaganda like a frog. 

Besides, it’s not as though they even have elections yet. Not ones that matter. Everyone knows how you get a seat in Parliament, and the only ballot that matters there is the cenz. 

Roy wonders if Ed knows: if he’s been following the news, keeping up with the three-ring circus kicked off - in part- by him dropping off his people-eating pet snake. It’s difficult to gauge how invested Ed is in federal politics beyond the unimpressed expectation that Roy pony up, especially given how inextricable the military is from any part of the government; he’d dropped pretty comprehensively off the map for nearly eighteen months after the Promised Day, though give he and Alphonse presumably spent that time recovering in Resembool it’s not a surprise. Roy also knows that before Alphonse’s decision to pursue university he and Ed spent over a year in Xing; this must have required at least _some_ use of their Xingese political connections, because they did not obtain Amestrian exit visas and were not recorded entering or leaving the country by Customs & Immigration Control. This isn’t too unusual - the desert border can hardly be called secure - but that’s because in Xing, like in Amestris, you need papers to do fucking anything, unless you can manage to keep away from people and live off the land. And it’s hardly likely the Elrics spent their sabbatical camping, what with the hand of Imperial favor quite open to them, last Roy heard. 

Then again - who knows. These stuttered glimpses into Ed’s civilian life are as strange and fascinating as they are exasperating and familiar: gymnastics, drunken cheating on poetry assignments, _tutoring._ Gathering people like moths, people who in any other circumstances likely wouldn’t be caught dead in the same building as each other; doing good deeds in the most aggressive and inconvenient ways possible. 

Ed’s always going to be Ed - Roy has not forgotten that they do have a meeting with Dianne coming up, and soon - but it’s reassuring, somewhat, that he’s clearly building a life outside of the hostile mountains he’s decided to climb barehanded. It’s what Maes and Gracia keep telling _him_ to do, and they’re the most emotionally and psychologically stable people Roy knows. He figures that qualifies them to be the expert perspective. 

Besides. This is, theoretically, what Ed and his agemates _should_ be doing: getting drunk, wandering the city, making small silly mistakes where no one dies and the worst consequences are some hangovers and a handful of bruises. Being careless, being childish, being able to afford it. Isn’t this, more or less, what Roy and Riza and Maes are all working for? 

It’s certainly what he himself asked for, Roy thinks, not without irony. He should probably consider himself lucky Ed hasn’t already turned up big-eyed and mockingly sincere at one of his meetings because he needs help opening a jar of peanut sauce or something. On balance, driving a pig to a vet is pretty minor: for one, Ed could have _actually_ decided to declare blood war on a police precinct, and if Roy hadn’t run into him by chance that night, he would have. 

Ed could have asked him to ruin the officers that harassed him and his friends that night. Roy would have done it. It’s not a hardship to take a chunk out of endemic police corruption, after all, and would have been a good opportunity to make an example of those officers besides. Build out his own current reputation a little further. 

Instead, Ed asks for a ride, some petsitting, some scraps of information. The Minister of War himself practically corners Ed into asking favors, Roy thinks sardonically, and he treats it like they’re still trading on the level of pocket change. Ed is not so politically deaf as to not realize what he has in Roy - it’s just that between Ed’s determined independence, ‘equivalent exchange,’ and his straightjacket moral core, pocket change is as far as things will go. 

And so here they are, trundling in the dark with a back seat full of drunk children, on an errand that Roy would really rather have dispatched to one of the more hyperactive corporals on his tertiary staff. An errand that Ed clearly considers too much, when it is objectively the opposite. On the international, political level, Roy’s reach is greater than ever; to these kids, he’s just somebody's weird uncle. 

Roy’s just followed that thought to its natural conclusion - namely that these kids think he’s _Edward Elric’s_ weird uncle - when Gymnast Brinley, in the painstaking tones of someone philosophizing through several liters of alcohol, says, “So is he. Like. Your sugar daddy?” 

Ed spits water into his lap. “Oh my _god,”_ exclaims Waif Tracie. “Oh my _god,_ Brinley, you can’t just _ask_ if someone is their _sugar daddy -“_

“Hey! There’s nothing _wrong_ with it!” Gymnast Landy says hotly, twisting in her seat. “It’s a thing people do, it’s not _hurting_ anybody -” 

Ed, still dribbling, wheezes, “You think I have a sugar daddy?” 

“Oh my _god,”_ says Waif Tracie. 

Gymnast Landy is not light enough to flush visibly, but she definitely sounds like she’s blushing. “I mean - okay, like - you’re - you know - and I know you work but you don’t ever say where, and you schedule is always like - flexible - and like - you don’t _act_ rich but you’ve always got money -” 

_“Flexible!”_ Ed collapses cackling.

“I assure you, Edward is very much a self made man,” Roy feels he has to interject at this point, which sends Ed nearly horizontal on the seat, choking with laughter. Roy does have to purse his own mouth somewhat to keep from laughing himself. “He’s quite independent.” 

“Totally! And like, it’s like, _totally_ fine if he is!” Waif Tracie says. “I was just _saying, Brin,_ that _maybe_ a little _tact_ now and again -” 

Ed now sounds like a pug being waterboarded. “Like, maybe there’s a _reason_ he doesn’t talk to you about work, okay,” Gymnast Landy says, staunchly if misguidedly in support of Ed’s supplemental income sources. “What Ed does is his business! He can do whatever he wants, there’s _nothing_ wrong with it.” 

“Don't worry,” Ed gasps, voice gone stratospheric with laughter. “He - oh, my god - he can’t afford me -” 

He dissolves into hysterics again. “I have demonstrably afforded you,” Roy murmurs, just for Ed’s ears, but judging by Gymnast Landy’s squeak right behind him it wasn’t quite low enough, even under Ed’s asthmatic goose honking. 

“I just, I’m,” Ed manages, floundering uprightwards on the seat, biting his lips. “Oh, my god. Thank you, Brin, that was - you’re fine, man, ohhh my god. Don’t worry. If you think I’m - earning my cash ass to ceiling -” 

Here he loses it again, so it’s probably lucky that within the minute Roy’s headlights sweep over a woodsy street corner and illuminate three lanky half-adolescent shapes clustered around something large and moving on the ground. “I believe we’re here,” Roy says, somewhat unnecessarily given their arrival on the scene is welcomed by a noise from like a bull getting a surprise prostate exam. 

“Oh _no,”_ Landy says in agitation, but Ed says, “No, no, that’s good, that means its lungs are clear - airway, y’know, all that shit - it’s good. Here, get the cloth out, it’s in the back -“

Roy exits the car only after all the others have piled out. Ed’s crouched down by what can only be the pig, though it looks more to Roy like what would happen if every barbershop in the Central metro area swept their clippings into a glue vat and then dumped an extremely unfortunate wrestler into the result. The carcass Havoc and Breda had brought him when they’d had to fake Lieutenant Ross’s corpse had been more appealing, though that may have been due to the fact that it wasn’t kicking, bleating and half stuck in a hedge. 

Ed shifts deftly out of the way of a flailing hindleg, not rising out of his crouch. “Okay,” Roy hears him say, “what the fuck happened here?” 

The new children, left on site, fall over themselves to give a sitrep. It rapidly becomes clear that Ed took the hammered ones with him and left the somewhat more sober ones with the pig, and just as clear that sobriety is relative. “Okay, so, like, we were sitting with it just like you said -” 

“- only we accidentally spilled some of the, uh, uh, drink,” a ginger one says, shooting Roy a look like she thinks he’s some kind of cop or something or otherwise expects him to give a damn about the ambient BAC in this vicinity. “And it kinda - licked it up -”

“And that seemed to calm it down, only then another car came by and honked -“

“- so it freaked out and ran headfirst into the hedge.”

“And got stuck.”

“And got - yeah. Stuck.”

“Only thought we should calm it down again, ‘cause we didn’t want it hurting itself kicking around.”

“So we fed it some more… drink.”

They conclude this presentation with matched nervous stares, mostly at Roy. “You fed the pig vodka,” Roy says fatalistically, more to himself than anything. “Of course you did.” 

“It was thirsty,” one of the waifs says defensively. 

“It’s made from potatoes,” says another one.

“That might not have been the worst idea,” Ed says thoughtfully, proving once and for all that Roy is right in aggressively avoiding all knowledge of anything to do with pigs or livestock or farming. “Pigs can get pretty mean. And anything that’s hurt bites. We’re gonna be moving her into the car, so it’s better if she’s calm.” He stands up, beckoning. “Landy, Brinley, Chal, we’re gonna get her on the tarp thing and then we all take a corner, okay?” 

“Okay. Just. I’m gonna,” Brinley starts, then swallows tellingly, about-faces and vomits into the grass. 

This is immediately addressed by the other hoodlums, who exclaim and scatter and then contract again around him, squalling about new shoes and the sins of excess and how oh god, they’re gonna puke too. Ed sighs, picks up the dropped cloth and starts spreading it himself. 

Roy, vaguely pleasantly surprised by how fast his reflexes took him out of the splash zone, is definitely starting to see what Ed meant when he showed up in his office that first year and complained about his agemates being children. “Were we _ever_ like this?” he says under his breath as he crouches down to help Ed arrange the drop cloth.

“Oh, much dumber,” Ed says distractedly. “Exponentially dumber. None of these kids have ever killed anyone, for a start - oh my god, Chal, that’s _not_ how you hold someone’s hair. Aline, for fuck’s sake, help him out.”

The pig contributes to the chaos by emitting a foghorn groan and then a long series of what Roy can only imagine to be porcine swearwords. “You said it was injured,” he says to Ed, before he can ask _Roy_ to corral the orgy of adolescence and vomit happening behind them. 

“Yeah, its face was all fucked up, and it had some cuts and stuff up there,” Ed says, turning back to the pig and waving a hand at where its front half is ruining the topiary. “I’m more concerned by how there’s all this blood back… here. Hm.” 

That’s not a good _hm,_ but Roy’s distracted by Gymnast Landy turning up beside him, nose wrinkling but tucking her hair back in a businesslike way and picking up a corner of the drop cloth. “Tracie and Aline’re making sure nobody gets hit by a car or anything,” she reports, more to Ed than to Roy, though the glance she gives him is still more ‘kid acknowledging Dad’s new girlfriend’ than anything else. “Is the pig okay?” 

Ed, who has somehow caught a flailing hoof in his hand and is now carefully extending the pig’s leg out to the side, says, “I dunno. There’s all this blood where there shouldn’t be, and it’s...” 

He trails off, then says, in a very different voice, “Oh. She’s pregnant.” 

“Who?” Landy says confusedly. 

“The pig,” Ed says, in what Roy considers an inappropriately calm tone. “I didn’t see it before ‘cause it’s dark. Okay - Landy, you know where the vet is, yeah? Go with Roy.”

“What?” Landy squeaks. 

“It’s giving birth _now?”_ Roy demands. 

“Yup. So you can either be here,” Ed says calmly - there’s a horrific squeal from the pig - “or you can go and give the vet some money and tell them there’s a pig with its head stuck in a fence farrowing on the corner of Mayjoy and 23rd. C’mon - Landy, get him outta here, you gotta show him where to go.” 

Landy gives Roy a much more alarmed what _-_ do-you-mean-Dad’s-girlfriend-is-now-Dad’s- _fiancée_ look, but then visibly steels herself, nods quick and scrambles to her feet. Roy’s just glad to get back to the car - the pig noises seem to be increasing in volume and urgency and at least two teenagers are still puking - even if it does mean sitting next to a politely awkward young lady who is definitely halfway convinced he’s double-tap financing _and_ fucking her schoolmate. 

But Roy’s sat through far less comfortable company, and he ignores the halfhearted instinct to charm her in favor of asking her to navigate. A vague premonition begins to build, though, as Landy’s confidence in her directions increases the further they drive into Victory Hill: these are the exact kind of house Roy doesn’t live in, as the garden walls rise higher, develop guard booths, sprout rows of iron spikes. Generals’ houses. 

“You know this veterinarian well?” Roy asks idly, eyes on the road as she directs him up a broad, tree-lined street. 

“She’s a family friend, um, sir,” Landy says. “I grew up next door.” 

“I see,” Roy says. Damn. “That’s very fortunate.” 

There are no guards at the house Landy chooses, just a high, ornate metal gate in the stone wall. Landy directs him to a side drive, where a much smaller gate has an unlocked latch and leads to a brick garden path. When they reach the front door, it’s opened by a small, vaguely pear-shaped woman wearing a bathrobe, enormously square glasses and an expression of deep concern. 

“Hello?” she says, then, _“Landy?_ What - why are you -“

Then she visibly recognizes Roy, and Roy’s mental filing decks throw up a flashcard in return: he’s met her, maybe thrice, at officers’ balls, because her wife is Colonel Takarhin, 3rd Motor Company, who is the kind of white-haired matron who Roy has to fend off with charming anecdotes of his own horseback ineptitude every time she slaps his back, calls him _sport_ and invites him riding on one of her endless thoroughbreds. 

Luckily, Landy spares them the need to verbally recognize each other. “Dr. Takarhin there’s a hurt pig and we found it and it’s going to give _birth!_ Only - I know you do horses but I thought - if you don’t know pigs maybe you know someone who does -” 

“A _pig?”_ Dr. Takarhin says, eyes snapping back to Landy. “Where?” 

“We left it with my friends - mister, uh, - he has a car, he drove me ‘cause I know where your house is and my friend says the pig’s not hurt that bad, but he thinks it got hit by a car and now it’s stuck in a fence and that was before he knew it was _pregnant -”_

“I’ll go get my kit,” Dr. Takarhin says, and only flicks a single wary glance at Roy before opening the door into her foyer and disappearing inside. 

Roy makes a point to remember who dislikes him and her face does not, to his recollection, have a place on that list, so her behavior is likely just the normal reaction to having the Flame Alchemist, now-General Mustang, show up unexpectedly at her door. He follows Landy’s cautious step into the foyer, which turns out to be filled with dogs. Very elderly dogs, judging by the white muzzles and creaky way they raise their heads and give them lethargic stares. 

Landy occupies herself with kneeling down to pet them, and they line up patiently for her attentions and only sniff disinterestedly at Roy’s shoes. Roy occupies himself with listening intently for where Dr. Takarhin is in the house and dearly hoping that if her wife is home then that she’s safely asleep or at least utterly uninterested in seeing Roy this time of night. The chances of that are not good. A Colonel doesn’t live in the Generals’ district just because; the Takarhins are grain barons, money almost as old as the Armstrongs, and the Colonel is _very_ active in as many social circles as she can stick her riding crop into. Explaining his own presence and connection to Landy - whose surname he suspects he would be able to place among his fellow brass - is not something he’ll do if there’s any way around it.

Because if _he’s_ here, personally, instead of sending some second lieutenant on this private’s errand, then that means it _is_ personal, and that might as well have _leverage_ stamped all over it in bright pink lightningbolt font. 

And people are looking for leverage. Takarhin might not personally have anything against him, but information is currency, favor more so, and she isn't affiliated strictly with any bloc but her own, which makes her a broker of sorts by default. The entire Amestrisan government has not forgotten that Roy is young and overpromoted, but they have not forgotten that he is a State Alchemist, either, and that it is unwise to cross him. Immediately after the Promised Day there was enough chaos - between the alchemical crisis, sharp uptake in earthquakes and flare of Aerugan aggression - that the quiet struggle to fill the power vacuum was very quiet indeed, as they all collectively tried to keep a lid on the populace and present a united and not at all weakened front to their hostile neighbors. Nobody opposed Roy too hard when he very publicly made himself the face of the regrouping, rebuilding and reassuring efforts; the entire order had just been upended, after all, and everyone was trying to figure out where all the others stood, what alliances could be forged out of the mess. They were happy to let him talk to the press and milk his proposal that the military’s alchemists and engineers be deployed in order to rebuild civilian infrastructure and repair what had been damaged in the ongoing earthquakes. 

But now things are much more stabilized, which means everyone is shaking their limbs out and exploring the new space to maneuver. The flipside to old blood being purged is that a lot of ambitious quick thinkers have eeled into the waiting gaps, and while of course Roy wants to see bright and driven minds in government he is well aware that not everyone shares his shining vision for the future. And now Roy has been appointed Minister, painting a big shiny target on his back for everyone who thinks they want to make it to the top. Riza has cleaved herself to his side forcefully enough that Grumman has to take a care as to what he tosses into Roy’s lap, and Olivier still backs Roy, as explicitly if not less disdainfully as ever, but Riza and Grumman are not close, despite the fact that he does care for his granddaughter, and Olivier likes to stay up north. Roy does not have the luxury of relaxing his vigilance.

He’s going to have to tell Dr. Takarhin something that will make this uninteresting. Something her wife will believe. Something darling little Landy won't contradict, by accident or on purpose. Because if he’s a gentleman friend of Ed’s - 

Hm. 

If he’s a gentleman friend of Ed’s, who is so mature and flexible and doesn’t act rich but always has money, then to Colonel Takarhin, Ed Elric is not a mystery connection who can compel a General to get out of bed in the middle of the night; he’s just another one of Roy Mustang’s beautiful blond _friends._ Fresh and new enough to be doing harmless little favors for, even. Not worth digging into beyond that. The recent work Maes did on Ed’s records is good, but if the past decade has taught Roy anything it’s that it’s literally not possible to be paranoid enough. And Ed _had_ already done this. Exactly this. _Hi, I’m Ed, mister Brigadier General Soffler sir..._

So Roy smiles at Landy, just the right mix of tired and friendly, catching and keeping her eye. “I appreciate your discretion, earlier,” he says, his voice low but not overmuch so, quiet guests in a quiet house. “Ed prefers to keep his personal matters to himself, and I know he must think highly of your respect for that.”

“Oh,” Landy stutters, her arm stilled around the nearest dog, her doe eyes huge. “Um - It’s um, nothing? Ed’s - he’s - he’s a really nice guy.” 

“He is,” Roy agrees, even if _nice_ isn’t exactly the word he’d be using. “And you were quite right, besides. There _is_ nothing wrong with it.” 

He winks, friendly and easy and just sly enough to make it clear that yes, he _is_ talking about what she thinks he’s talking about, and isn’t it good, being in on the secret, being trusted, being on Ed’s side together. Landy stares up at him like a stunned rabbit, then starts nodding a beat too late, still wholly flustered. “He’s quite lucky to have a friend like you,” Roy adds, casually sincere, and Landy’s spared having to put together an answer for that by Dr. Takarhin returning with quick footsteps and some quiet clattering, now in boots and pants and slinging a large backpack over her shoulder. 

“Let’s go,” she says briskly, ushering them out the door, and thank fuck she decides to take her own car, a rattling mudspattered truck that should be rolling out of an abandoned barn instead of a manicured car park. Roy is spared having to make conversation, though he suspects Dr. Takarhin thinks she’s sparing herself; in any case it gets them back to the surprise outdoor pig maternity ward in short order, though Landy is shooting him half-fascinated looks a little more frequently than she did previous. 

At least when Dr. Takarhin arrives on the scene all attention goes to her and the pig and explaining one to the other. Ed alternates between holding bits of pig at her order and directing his pack of hooligans, who are charged mostly with staying out of the way. The casual exasperation in Ed’s voice is starting to give Roy flashbacks of that time fourteen-year-old Riza shot a deer in front of him, right between the eyes, and then began to butcher it without the slightest concern for the fact that he and his new vest were ostensibly out with her on a woodland walk. Ed being blond and now bloody to the elbows is not helping with this in the slightest. 

When the squealing and grunting intensifies Roy busies himself with staying back and making sure he hasn’t stepped in any vomit, gotten smudged with pig blood or otherwise unnecessarily exposed himself to the night’s biohazards. At some point a small cheer goes up, so he assumes that however the pig is spawning it’s doing so in the approved manner and not exhibiting too many signs of being negatively affected by the application of well-meaning idiocy and vodka. When he risks a glance around the car he assumes that the small struggling shapes now stumbling around at ground level are piglets, but he’s not looking too hard lest he see even more fluids tonight. Brinley’s contribution was more than enough. 

He’d like to just head off home - he still has a stack of reports from the military labs’ quarterly review to go over before tomorrow - but he’s well aware that he can’t just trundle off without staging an exit. That means waiting until things die down, when the teenagers are corralling piglets and it looks like Dr. Takarhin is packing up her bag. Ed is still crouched down, though now occupied with the opposite end of the pig, methodically stripping branches out of the hedge so that the pig - lying mostly quiescent now, on its side, covered in piglets - can be unstuck. 

Roy slips past the rest of them and puts his palm to Ed’s shoulder, bending down to speak closer than is strictly necessary to Ed’s ear. “Do you still need me?”

For a second Ed just stares up at him, startled, like Roy spoke in a language he doesn’t understand. There’s still blood smudged on the underside of his chin. “No,” Ed says half a beat later, his tone starting strange but rapidly going familiar. “Go home, bastard, get outta here. We got a real car, you’re useless to me now.”

“So glad to have been of service,” Roy says, aware of the attention on them, on the drop in the ambient teenage volume and the slowing of Dr. Takarhin’s hands in her bag. He keeps his hand on Ed’s shoulder. “You know how to reach me if you need anything.” 

“Yeah, yeah, say your name three times and spit over my shoulder,” Ed says. “Go. I know you need as much of that beauty sleep shit as you can get.” 

“Thank you,” Roy says gravely. “I feel very cared for. Get home safe.” He straightens, nodding to Takarhin and the rest as he squeezes slightly at Ed’s shoulder and then lets go. “Doctor. Landy.” He smiles at her specifically, fleeting but swift and genuine enough to echo his wink. “Have a pleasant evening, all.” 

That should do it. And if Ed finds out that Roy let them make assumptions, and takes issue - well. It’s hardly as though Roy _lied._ And the point is to get Ed beyond credit and debt, but, well. Roy _is_ an alchemist. Maybe he can allow himself a little evening of the score after all: his turn to bat his lashes at Ed’s acquaintances and smile. Why should Ed get all the fun? 


End file.
